Back in March 2016, the Incident Alerts reported an incident at a refinery where workers were overcome while wearing air-line respirators. The facility, media, and OSHA were silent on details, but now OSHA has posted their accident summary:
At approximately 8:45 a.m. on March 2, 2016, Employee #1 and Employee #2 were removing bolts from a pump preparing it for removal. They donned airline respirators which were attached to a cylinder cascade system via a spider manifold and regulator to conduct the next task. The cylinder cascade system to which the masks were attached was argon and not grade D breathing air and both employees went down due to asphyxiation. Employee #1 died and Employee #2 was hospitalized with traumatic brain injury.
Incident Alert Info
FATALITIES 2 CONTRACTORS INJURED AT PORT ALLEN REFINERY (two contractors at a refinery were taken to a hospital after they were injured while working near storage tanks – workers were injured while doing work that required them to use fresh air supplies, which are provided by the refinery, – workers may have been exposed to gas – no substances leaked from the tanks or nearby facilities – investigation is looking into whether the safety equipment the contractors had “was properly used”)